experiments and atmospheres. adventures into unexpected places and textures. modular synth, with and without other instruments and field recordings.

modular

songs from my album "spring" on @gohantapes.

recorded january through april 2017, as rainshowers and cool evenings gave way to golden sunlight and new life.

piano, modular synthesizer, rhodes, lap harp + ebow, contact mic surface + found objects, handheld field recorder, delay + reverb pedals.

spring

for the 133rd disquiet junto, "six-note song." (http://disquiet.com/2014/07/17/disquiet0133-sixnotesong/)

solo piano meditation, with a touch of strymon el capistan tape delay + bluesky reverb.

apparently, this is my first contribution to the junto this year; it's been that long since my december 2013 submission: https://soundcloud.com/ioflow/first-frost

title reference: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Kings+6:15&version=NKJV

cedar and cypress (disquiet0133-sixnotesong)

collaborative effort by ioflow and weldroid.

this was originally a short solo piano improvisation i made one night. (http://soundcloud.com/​ioflow/​20110331a)

weldroid (http://www.weldroid.net) liked it enough to share with me his vision of the track, which was considerably re-amped and synth-fuzzed, and he gave my sketch a title: "light showers," which conjured up all kinds of awesome imagery. i liked his interpretation of the material enough to modify his stems, and then perform my modified version live, unrehearsed. it's even beatier and volt-warped than weldroid's arrangement, thus: "electrified."

ioflow > weldroid > ioflow > your ears

i used rove to perform this piece, on two monome 128s, which were joined into a single virtual 256 by griddle (http://github.com/artfwo/griddle).

video of this performance: https://vimeo.com/25174976

ioflow + weldroid - light showers (electrified)

ambient improvisation for piano day 2015. recorded with just a touch of tape delay and reverb.

http://www.pianoday.org

inland trail

piano, modular synthesizer, and field recordings of birds.

slow spaces

piano improvisation. live, one take.

the piano is running through argotlunar (http://argotlunar.info/), a realtime delay-line granulator, hosted in renoise, then sent through calf reverb on the way to jack timemachine. by the time the piano grains are processed and smeared, the trills and melodies i played sounded very little like the original. some surprisingly lush, gritty chords were produced.

argotlunar is a lot of fun to play with. i'll be using it more in the future.

20110912

piano, a glass of ice water, and gentle swells. for disquiet junto 0210, "ice coda," and another musical project with the same deadline, weekly beats 2016 #01.

http://disquiet.com/2016/01/07/disquiet0210-icecoda/

it's been awhile since i last participated in the junto and even longer since weekly beats, so i went back to basics. my primary instrument is the piano, so i improvised a tumbling melody, then added layers of rhodes running through delay and reverb pedals. the field recordings of ice cubes and running water were made with a zoom h5 + sgh-6 capsule mic.

cold hands, rainstorm outside (disquiet0210-icecoda)

ambient piano improvisation + fx + field recordings. i used a zoom h5 to capture the birds, then went into the studio to record the piano improvisation.

the first things i hear each day are the birds that live in the orange trees and succulents outside. hummingbirds, towhees, sparrows, all happily cheeping away every morning. it's a good way to wake up.

three projects were due this week: weekly beats 012 on sunday, disquiet junto 0221 and piano day 2016 on monday. this song was recorded for all three.

daily birds

ambient drone instrumental for harp, field recordings, and electronics. first recording with the modular.

lap harp, ebow, fieldrecs, pedal and modular effects. filtered harp swells through tape delay and reverb pedals, some of which is then processed by a modular fx chain: mutable instruments clouds, tides, and shades. wood and glass ornament recordings were also fed through the modular, with the tides parasite firmware generating random movement for various clouds parameters.

once again, i followed a "blind" recording process, laying down one track at a time without listening to any of them until the whole piece was finished. the results were surprising, calming, lovely. a bit of glitch, slowly rising chords, and gray skies outside.

recorded for weekly beats 2016 #19: http://weeklybeats.com

clouds and wind, shifting

a textured noise experiment in no-input mixing. an afternoon in the laboratory, high-voltage lines sizzling, mysterious pipes and beakers bubbling. subsonic rumbles. no audio signals were used.

this is my first-ever venture into no-input recording, per this week's disquiet junto project theme. i was originally planning on doing something with my mackie mixer and strymon effects pedals, a multitracked pitched ambient drone sketch, but...i didn't have enough 1/4" cables. so i figured i could try it with a mixer eurorack module: mutable instruments shades.

i normally mostly use shades to control the amount of modulation sent to clouds. but on its own, once self-patched, shades puts out a surprising amount of extremely low-frequency noise when adjusting knobs, as i saw with a spectrum/eq utility in ableton live. i had an idea: why not excite that activity with a modulator such as tides? i already had the parasite alternative firmware running on tides, so it was just a matter of sending one output of random control voltage into shades, and from there into my audio interface.

the result was seven minutes of hilarious, delightful knob-wiggling, which i then edited down to under three minutes. this track is a sample of the wildly varying textures, drones, static pops, pitched buzz, and burbling gloops obtained with this tiny self-patched rig. just two modules, but so much fun!

recorded for disquiet junto 0232, "no input," and weekly beats 2016 #23.

http://disquiet.com/2016/06/09/disquiet0232/
http://weeklybeats.com

electric waterworks (disquiet0232)

a slow lagoon circuit, surrounded by tiny cheeping birds. bushtits, scolding anna's hummingbirds, and distant crows.

all sounds from the modular. melodies and swells from a makenoise STO and Function, sent through mutable instruments Clouds. long-form note loops play by monome earthsea, which also modulates parameters on the makenoise modules. the isms case/instrument provides an LPG and spring reverb tank. tape delay via strymon el capistan. radiomusic played back the field recording.

each layer was recorded separately into ableton live, without listening to any of them until the whole song was assembled; a sort of "blind" recording process.

i had originally intended to get the drones of this piece into disquiet junto project 0240, but couldn't finish before yesterday's deadline. at least it is now part of weekly beats 2016 #32: http://weeklybeats.com

slow circles

ambient improvisation for piano and birds. early morning field recording. trickling stream, australasian doves and finches, hummingbirds overhead scolding and darting over the treetops.

recorded for weekly beats 2016 #36: http://weeklybeats.com

20160911

layered improvisation for keys, modular synth, effects, and field recordings. sudden rainfall in the late afternoon.

this week's track was created with weekly beats 43 and disquiet junto 0252 ("sonic palindrome") in mind. to have a song begin and end in the same manner (ABA metastructure), and to have individual palindromic sections in between that contain their own mirrors, with little variations throughout. the shifting pads created with the modular were another way of adding symmetry, in the attack/release envelopes.

modular notes:  a few tracks of mangrove, played by earthsea and grid, running through ripples and clouds (and then through el capistan and bluesky), with just friends and peaks providing amplitude envelopes.

recorded for weekly beats 2016 #43 and disquiet junto 0252:

http://weeklybeats.com
http://disquiet.com/2016/10/27/junto-0252/

20161030 (disquiet0252)

a brief ambient drone improvisation. piano, lap harp, ebow, fx, field recordings. costa's hummingbirds, northern mockingbirds, black phoebes, and other distant birds. flowing water, sunlight and shadows.

recorded for weekly beats 2016 #44: http://weeklybeats.com

20161105

ambient improvisation for piano, modular synth, effects, and field recordings. piano stretched and reamped through modular and outboard fx.

despite incredible physical pain over the last week as my health deteriorates, God gives overwhelming peace. a joy that can't be explained, only experienced; greater than all my suffering.

recorded for weekly beats 2016 #46: http://weeklybeats.com

a wondrous place

a song from my album "spring," released november 30 2017. piano + field recordings; coots, ducks, and water.

https://ioflow.bandcamp.com/album/spring

ripples // lakesounds

a song from my album "spring," released november 30 2017. piano + lapharp + modular + field recordings; birds and water.

https://ioflow.bandcamp.com/album/spring

lines // lakesounds

ambient improvisation. piano and field recording. tiny birds cheeping happily on a warm spring day.

recorded for piano day 2017, march 29. available on my album "spring," released november 30 2017.

https://www.pianoday.org
https://ioflow.bandcamp.com/album/spring

costa's canyon

ambient improvisations for piano, rhodes, modular synthesizer, effects, and field recording.

for the first disquiet junto project of the year (my last contribution was #0300 in october 2017), i followed the "blind recording" process i developed in 2016, starting with the field recording: crushed ice swirling in a glass, occasionally poured into another glass. as the ice melted, only the sounds of water and the largest ice cubes were left.

i then recorded the piano improvisation without listening to the ice; those clinks and little swishes serendipitously lined up with individual notes and longer phrases over different octaves.

finally, i recorded the rhodes swells by twisting the mixer volume knob, with that audio running through the modular synthesizer and strymon effects pedals. the whole thing was assembled in ableton live and audacity, with no other effects, eq, or compression.

recorded for disquiet junto 0314, "cold start."
https://disquiet.com/2018/01/04/disquiet-junto-project-0314-cold-start/

20180108

ambient improvisation. piano and field recording. warm shadows, a hushed forest, trickling water, little birds chirping overhead. recorded for piano day 2018, march 29.

http://www.pianoday.org

tiny creek

experimental ambient. live performance for monome norns.

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BL3drqsfuo

two rhodes improvisations were recorded into norns and loaded into mlr. also present is a field recording of an anna's hummingbird, taken while on a nature walk in a canyon preserve.

the main rhodes improvisation is duplicated across the first two tracks. the second, shorter rhodes improvisation is on the third track, just above the hummingbird loop. all the rhodes tracks are played at different speeds and directions, jumbled, chopped and switched, accompanied by the gentle sounds of the hummingbird chirping happily to itself in the shadows of the dense canyon foliage, on a warm summer day.

this is my first recording with monome norns. sample-based grid apps--mlr, mlrv, rove, and all their variants--have been a part of my creative workflow for several years. being freed from the confines of desktop computers and their fidgety, cantankerous operating systems and software stacks; instead being able focus on the immediacy of hardware music-making, as easily as sitting down at my piano, is incredibly liberating. it's pretty much everything i've wanted to be able to do since i got my first monome grid in 2011. norns is wonderful, so full of possibilities. i'm looking forward to fulfilling more musical dreams.

canyon loops

my song for the ambient compilation "Friends," released december 6 2018, on @seilrecords.

modular synthesizer + piano + field recordings + effects. gentle melodies and birds; slow sunshine and cool shadows.

https://seilrecords.bandcamp.com/album/an-ambient-compilation

Friends

tanagers in paradise

ambient live performance for modular synthesizer. midnight. explorations and preparations. new material; looking ahead.

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63Pxva56dFs

modular patch notes are on the YT video page. recorded june 1, 2019.

nightglow

live performance for eurorack modular synthesizer. ambient atmospheres. once more around the midnight sun. explorations and experiments with make noise morphagene.

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiyozPdUxVs

modular patch notes are on the YT page. recorded september 28, 2019.

aphelion // beyond the horizon

an experimental ambient/drone live performance for modular synthesizer, originally as a four-part video for instagram. seven voices, gently drifting.

video: https://www.instagram.com/p/B3r7h7rhBoT/

modular patch notes are on the IG post. recorded october 16, 2019.

static currents

ioflow - piano + strymon bluesky reverb
seth chrisman - "west point surf" field recording

seth chrisman (http://soundcloud.com/widesky) posted the raw audio a couple days ago. i liked it so much that i recorded a simple piano improvisation over the top of it, leaving the original audio untouched, except for a couple of volume adjustments. a touch of reverb from the strymon BSR added extra spaciousness to the piano.

i've always had a soft spot for ocean sounds combined with instrumentation, and this field recording was particularly inspiring. thanks, seth, for capturing it, and making it available.

surf point

for the 55th disquiet junto, two screws. (http://disquiet.com/2013/01/17/disquiet0055-twoscrews/)

the task was to combine "do" (http://soundcloud.com/erasedtapes/nils-frahm-do)> and "re" (http://soundcloud.com/erasedtapes/nils-frahm-re) by nils frahm into a new work (http://reworked.nilsfrahm.com). i chopped "re" into loops, and rearranged sections by sight and sound for a deliberately loose feel. the resulting piece is entirely unquantized, with percussion generated from the piano/pedal action sounds of "do" set under the "re" arrangement. the perc was performed with an mpd18 midi controller in real time, and then arranged by dragging individual hits with a mouse. since the original piano recordings were improvised, tempo fluctuates at around 70bpm, and i didn't want to lock myself into anything tighter when creating the downtempo beats.

normally i'd program everything to a strict grid with renoise, but for this project, i used ardour3 almost exclusively, except for a bit of sample preparation in renoise and audacity. the faint background pads/strings were created with paulstretch. my ardour3 session was filled with hundreds of samples, each one placed by hand and nudged around to keep the jazzy feel. this is a very rough rework -- no FX, detailed mixing/mastering, or complicated tricks. i ran outta time to do all the subtle things i usually do. instead, i spent all my time & effort on the arrangement and vibe. the minimal treatment worked better than everything i'd planned.

walking home alone through moonlit streets (disquiet0055-twoscrews)

for the 62nd disquiet junto, "textinstagr/am/bient." (http://disquiet.com/2013/02/28/disquiet0061-textinstagrambient/)

piano improvisation and old tape.

recorded directly to an old yamaha mt4x cassette recorder, using worn tape. additional reverb from a strymon bluesky pedal.

the slight wow/flutter and noise artifacts brought about by the old tape and preamps were left as-is, in keeping with the theme of a vintage instagram effect. i took the picture for this song at a nearby park, using the hudson filter.

branches against a colorful background (disquiet0061-textinstagrambient)

slow scenes from a few days ago. coast live oak and california scrub oak. tranquil groves and dappled sunshine. layered ambient improvisations: piano, modular synthesizer, rhodes, field recordings. birds, rings, clouds, keys.

video: https://www.youtube.com/c/ioflow

the sound of light shining down

ambient performance for monome norns, novation peak, and oto machines bam.

high above the distant bustle; the world far below now quiet and still. the drifting silver mists at day's end give way to moonlight as the tide returns.

six melodies from novation peak were recorded into monome norns, running the "oooooo" script, which is a six-track "digital tape" looper. the loops play at different speeds and directions, ever-so-slightly panned and continually shifted around the soundfield by slow LFOs. each loop has a warble control to momentarily bend its pitch, as if nudging an analog tape reel during playback. an ambient reverb from the oto machines bam fx unit periodically freezes the melodies, transforming them into faint pads.

novation peak is in the background with a self-playing patch: slow noise waves, run through a 24db bandpass filter, with varying overdrive and distortion levels, and a touch of chorus, delay, and reverb; all gently modulated by peak's LFOs and envelopes. the waves build, crescendo, and hiss across the distant shore.

this piece was created for disquiet junto 0476, IAH Forecast:
https://disquiet.com/2021/02/11/disquiet-junto-project-0476-iah-forecast/

live performance video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkrD_ci_FsA

hum and fog

experiments. moments. images. play. beautiful things to reflect the joy and peace of the Creator.

ioflow

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